Skyfire Part II: Lockdown
by Rapier Thirteen
Summary: Mila Dameron is proud to back Black Squadron's mission to find Lor San Tekka, but between that and training soldiers, she finds herself stretched thin. When Leia moves to expose the First Order, Mila is not only asked to help SpecForces gather information, but to testify to the Senate. She can hardly speak to Poe about what happened. How could she possibly tell the galaxy? Poe/OC
1. Sabre Strike

**What is up my dudes?! Here we are with the promised Part II! I'm excited to get going with this one, cause there's a lot of stuff in Part I that's carrying over here, and I can't wait to see how you guys react to it! **

**As you can tell, we are now officially entering into canon material! Yay! I'm pretty astringent about sticking to canon events, but I am adapting the canon for this story, so stuff like dialogue probably won't be exactly the same (unless something is just golden and I can't leave it out). Same goes for exact details in action. I may fudge it a little every now and then. In theory, this should make stuff flow a little better and lead to more genuine character interactions, and then I won't be word-for-word copying someone else's work.**

**So strap yourselves in, grab a drink, and enjoy this first chapter of Skyfire Part II!**

_PS - Happy birthday to the man behind our favorite flyboy! This one's for you, Oscar. We love you! :) _

* * *

_Chapter 1: Sabre Strike_

_This looked a lot easier on paper_.

Rocketing through space didn't usually bother someone like Poe Dameron—he spent the vast majority of his time traveling at the speed of light—but that was when he had his fighter.

Or anything else that flew.

Right now, it was just him. No fighter. No astromech.

Just an EVA suit and the hope that, somehow, he and Karé and Iolo could pull this crazy stunt off without getting caught.

Not succeeding and getting away had minor consequences. Not succeeding _and_ getting caught? That would make them criminals.

As if stealing a _Pinnacle-_class yacht wasn't criminal enough.

But the _Hevurion Grace_ wasn't wanted for its specs as a ship. As sleek and as beautiful as she was, it was what she might have on board that made her so valuable. It was why Leia had sent them after it in the first place.

This ship had been spotted in First Order space on more than one occasion. And it's owner—Senator Erudo Ro-Kiintor, someone who every Resistance pilot present hated to the marrow of his bones—had been taking hand-outs from the First Order. This was the man responsible for delaying or completely derailing sanctions against the First Order. This was someone who could throw the rug over the proverbial hole in the floor with only a sentence or two, and everyone—Populist or Centrist or otherwise—would turn a blind eye.

This was the man responsible for covering Rattatak.

Poe would be lying if he said that that didn't make what he was about to do _incredibly_ satisfying.

Assuming he could get to the yacht in one piece.

As soon as he'd pulled the ejection handle, the Z-95 Headhunter Poe had refitted specifically for this mission disappeared underneath him faster than he could blink. His breath fogged the inside of his EVA helmet, so he couldn't quite see where he was going. The suit itself restricted a lot of his movement. It had been hell to fly in. It would probably be even worse to run in.

The ungodly speed he was going at somehow made the wait to find that out even longer.

A timer clicked down the seconds in the corner of his helmet. From the second the _Hevurion Grace_ went sublight, it had been counting down. That was the real kicker: they had to be in and out with the _Grace_ in less than eight minutes… or they'd be flying for their lives against a sector patrol.

A _New Republic_ sector patrol.

That was the reason for the Headhunters, for the EVA suits, for their entire disguise as some of the most famous pirates in the galaxy. Absolutely _no one_ could know who had really stolen the _Hevurion Grace_.

In other words, if they got caught, they were on their own. No help from the Resistance would come, because it _couldn't_.

The _Hevurion Grace_ steadily grew in the front of his vision; the stars blurred past him so quickly they looked like white streaks. He looked at his timer.

One minute, thirty seconds.

That gave him only six and a half more. The good thing was that now he was close enough to the _Grace_ that her ventral side took up almost his entire field of vision.

He suddenly had a sinking feeling that perhaps he was going _too _fast.

He needed a way to slow down. Now. He'd already deployed the suit's maneuver jets and tried to decelerate, but it wasn't enough.

He only had a second the brace for the impact.

Poe's body slammed into the _Grace_'s hull hard enough he saw stars, even though he'd by some miracle hit his back and not his head. His breath flew out of his lungs. Blood slithered up his throat. Gritting his teeth, using the pain in his lumbar to fuel him, Poe climbed up the side of the _Grace_'s hull, clawed for the hatch, and through the limited dexterity his hands had in the EVA suit, he managed to break the seals on the hatch and throw himself inside. He lost seventeen more precious seconds resealing it before he pulled his weightless self down the ladder and into the ship itself.

Then the gravity came back online, and he slammed into the floor. The fresh bruise in the small of his back screamed.

He didn't let himself stop to catch his breath. His entire entrance had wasted two minutes, and he couldn't waste a second more.

Unstable legs pushed Poe's body from the durasteel floor. Every siren that could have been going off was, thanks to Iolo disabling most of the ship's systems the second it came out of hyperspace, and the wailing shredded his head as he plowed towards the cockpit. Poe reached for his blaster as he ran-stumbled towards it.

The back of Ro-Kiintor's bald head shone from one of the passenger seats. For a fleeting second, Poe imagined what would happen if he put a plugged a blaster bolt through the back of it.

The Senator, the pilot, and a servant all stared up at him. Poe was glad they wouldn't recognize him through the suit's tinted helmet… and that they couldn't see the smirk budding on his face.

"This vessel is now the property of the Irving Boys!" he thundered, the speakers in the EVA suit turning his voice alien.

Furious, Ro-Kiintor shot to his feet. He tried to emulate the authority with which Poe had seen him speak in Senate debates, but his pale face had flushed ghost white.

"Fool!" He tried to laugh, and it made him look even more ridiculous. "Do you _know _who I am? Do you—"

"I know that if you don't get into that escape pod in the next three seconds, I'm putting one between your eyes!"

No one moved, so he fired one single shot into the ground for emphasis.

Poe never would have actually shot the Senator, but it didn't make watching him scramble out of his seat and diving for the escape pod any less entertaining. Once the ship informed him that the pod had launched, he yanked off his helmet and took a few deep breaths of clean air before flopping into the cockpit.

He didn't have an astromech, so after he restarted the engines that Iolo's modified concussion missile had so effectively disabled, he'd need to enter the jump coordinates himself.

But first, he'd patch himself through to his squadron.

"Karé, Iolo, acknowledge."

"Loud and clear, boss." Karé Kun came though as confidently as ever. "How're you doing over there?"

"Still got five minutes." Poe flipped a few switches, and the vibration in the floor cued him that the engines were now online. "Let me plug in these coordinates—"

"Guys, I see something." In contrast to his wingman's acknowledgement, Iolo Arana sounded like he'd found a dangerous animal on his fuselage. The Keshian's infrared-sensitive eyes allowed him to see heat signatures, even if he was sublight and the object in question was still in hyperspace. By the tone of his voice, Poe guessed it couldn't have been good.

But it couldn't have been a New Republic patrol. He'd been on one long enough himself to know there was no way they could have mobilized that fast. They had another three minutes at least—

The patrol in question snapped into realspace, and Poe's already nauseous stomach dropped to the pit of his toes.

Where he'd expected to find X-wings, he counted eighteen TIE fighters, a frigate, and a few assault ships—

—all under the command of a massive _Resurgent_-class Star Destroyer.

"Not good."

* * *

Captain Mila Dameron was usually grateful for a day off.

She could rest her feet from the hard white floors of the cruiser's med bay, recollect herself, and relax a little. They were rare. As a matter of fact, one of the first things she'd learned once she'd joined the Resistance was that everyone, everywhere, was working on something. All the time. Many people, herself included, wore more than one hat, and they would until they could recruit more personnel. She got to sleep in that day. She had license to do almost whatever she wanted.

Despite all of that, _elated_ was the last word Mila would have used to describe herself that morning. And even farther fetched—so unbelievably far away from the mark that it was almost comical to think about—was the idea of relaxation.

Of all days to have off, it had to be this one.

She'd watched those Headhunters take off from the hangar, and since then, Mila had hardly been able to think. All she could hear in her head, loud and on repeat like an emergency siren:

_He's going to die. He's going to die. And if he doesn't, he'll get caught and arrested and tried… and then he'll die._

She'd sat on the edge of their bed in their shared officer's quarters, trying to make herself breathe. She'd found that the exercises sometimes slowed her racing heart and quieted her racing mind.

But today, after nearly an hour of trying, they had done nothing.

BB-8 rolled up beside her, clearly still a little befuddled. Even though he'd been sidelined from the mission for a perfectly good reason—Poe had told him that the Headhunters were too small for astromech assist—Mila could only chock up the droid's deflated beeps and drooped rolling as _pouting_. Had she not been on the verge of panicking herself, she might have thought it was funny.

BB-8 pressed up against her calf and warbled, wiggling a little bit as he spoke. Mila nodded.

"Good idea, buddy," she said tremulously. "I'm getting restless, too. Lead on."

Mila followed him to the door and stepped out into the hallway. The light was so bright it hurt Mila's eyes.

Pacing the cruiser was the best thing either of them could come up with for a distraction, and it, at this point, was a whole lot better than nothing.

_He'll be fine. He'll be fine..._

* * *

"Karé! Iolo!" Poe's shouted so loud it made his throat raw. "Jump! Get out of here, now!"

TIEs groaned past the _Hevurion Grace_, weaving in and out of the view of the canopy, almost like they were taunting him. Poe eyed the jump computer, and it was nowhere near close to having finished its calculations. Nor were the engines fully warmed up.

BB-8 could have done it in a few seconds flat. If only those Headhunters had been bigger.

Poe knew Karé and Iolo well enough to predict their reactions to the letter, but he still found himself groaning when they, in synch, came over the comms:

"Hell no!"

"That's an order, you two! There are way too many of them!" A TIE opened fire on Karé's Z-95 a little too close to the _Grace_ for comfort, but it proved his point. "You stay, and you'll be killed!"

"We leave, and we lose that information and you for sure!" Karé had dug her heels into the sand, and Poe knew there would be no moving her. "I don't know about Iolo, but I'm not going down that path again—" she blew past the canopy again, Corellian-rolled, and destroyed the TIE that had been trailing her "—_especially _when I don't have to!"

Poe sighed. "Karé—"

"Gotta agree with Captain Kun on this one, sir." Looked like Karé had backup. "You can court martial us later. It's all of us or none of us."

Iolo had a point, and even though they'd just openly defied him and he, technically, should have given them an earful for it, Poe found himself grinning.

"Fine then. You get killed, it's not on me."

The two Headhunters flashed in and out of his vision as Poe watched the ship's control panel. When next he looked up, Karé and Iolo had cut the TIEs down to nine… but more had swarmed from the belly of that _Resurgent_-class to replace them faster than Karé and Iolo could take them down.

Stuck in that fancy cockpit, there was nothing Poe could do but watch them fly for their lives. All three pilots had moved closer to the Uvoss gas giant that loomed behind them, hoping the planet's massive gravity pull would discourage them.

It hadn't worked.

A static thump cracked through Poe's comm, one that sent his heart into his mouth. One of Iolo's engines belched smoke, but the Keshian flew on. Flashes of events Poe would rather not relive taunted his eyes and made his blood run cold.

He couldn't do this again. He absolutely wouldn't.

"You're hit, Iolo," Poe said. "Get out of here, before they jump all over you. Do it _now, _that's an _order_."

"No can do, Commander. Staying put."

_Damn you, Arana_.

They needed a way out. Even if the computer wasn't ready to make the jump, Poe still scrambled to think of one. He stared down the _Resurgent_-class, almost as if he could peer into the beady eyes of the excuse of a person running it.

And all of a sudden, it came to him.

"Guys," he said. "I need you to fly straight at that destroyer."

"_Okay_." Karé scoffed as she knocked yet another TIE fighter out of the frame of existence. "All that talk about _not_ wanting to get us killed, and now you want us to do the _number one_ thing that could do just that?"

"That puts us in range of her tractor beams, sir," Iolo protested.

"So we run at her from the back." Poe was already moving to do just that. _"Resurgent_ beams are on the front. We go behind her, and she's got to turn around to chase us, or to suck us in. That buys us a lot of time."

A blinking light on the console caught Poe's attention, and a victorious grin stretched across his face.

"And looks like the _Grace_ is ready for the jump." Carefully, Poe angled the ship's nose towards the destroyer. "Flank me. We do this together."

"Right, okay." Karé had seen where he was going, so she'd settled into position as Poe had been speaking. "Running right at that thing. Sounds exhilarating. Coming, Iolo?"

The Keshian didn't share her enthusiasm. "Do I have a choice?"

"No," Poe said.

Iolo, still smoking, came up portside. Poe took a deep breath.

"On three. Up and over. And as soon as I give the signal, jump."

Poe gave the _Grace_'s thrusters everything he could. She handled so well now that she was fully awake, she was practically putty in his hands. He came at the destroyer so fast that for a fleeting second, his eyes tricked him into thinking it was backing into him.

Those officers were clearly surprised by their move, because it took them a lot longer than Poe anticipated to open fire. TIEs poured from the _Resurgent_'s belly.

The destroyer fired at them almost constantly now. The _Grace_ took a hit to the stern, but her shields held. The yacht and the Headhunters wove over and under one another trying to evade fire, and somehow, all three pilots found themselves ahead of the destroyer. Poe jerked the _Grace_'s nose upwards.

Not yet… _not yet…._

The TIEs that had struggled to keep up with them now swarmed at them from behind, and they had backup.

"Now! Jump now!"

Poe jerked back on the jump initiator, and the _Hevurion Grace_ slid into the safety of the hyperspace tunnel.


	2. The Echo of Hope

**Houston, we have an update! Woot! I'm so incredibly happy you guys liked the first chapter, and it meant so much to see you all hop onto this story so quickly, so thank you! You guys are awesome! Happy reading! :)**

* * *

_Chapter 2: The Echo of Hope_

The hallways aboard the _Echo of Hope_ were long and cornerless, a carbon copy of every standard Mon Cala cruiser Mila had been on. The wing around the small medbay was usually empty, or close to empty, and that was a good thing.

If it were busy, then something would have happened.

The only noise, besides Mila's boots tapping the floor and BB-8's rolling and occasional beeps, was the distant rumble of the cruiser's engines. She tried to focus on that—to count her footsteps, the tiles in the floor, or the lights over her head. As much as she wanted to, she couldn't find it in her to speak; even when BB-8 softly beeped at her, all she could manage was a grunt. She tried to give the little droid a smile, but it collapsed on her face.

One step. Two.

_He's going to die._

Four lights. Five.

_He's going to die._

Seven tiles. Eight.

_He's going to die_.

The harder she tried to ignore it, the louder the voice in Mila's head became.

_He's going to die. He's going to die. He's going to die._

Her eyes followed the reflection of the lights against the tile, watching the bright orb ripple and dance in front of her. Part of her felt like the child that would chase it down and hop on top of it, like she'd seen her nephews do, like she'd done when she was that young. A little smile tinged her face. What she wouldn't give to see Liam and Evan again. To hear them giggle, to watch them play. To play _with _them. Their little smiles sprang to the forefront of her mind, and for a moment, it was almost as if—

Something jumped in her peripheral, strewn against the wall. Mila spun to face it.

A body, covered in blood that pooled on the floor beside them. Beaten and burned beyond recognition. The smell that came with it clotted her sinuses. A shaking hand reached for her as the person screamed.

She sucked in air, stumbling a few steps backwards. She scrambled for her medkit, only to find that she didn't have it with her. Tugging at her fatigue jacket, she started to take it off so she could ball it up to stop the bleeding—

Only to find that her patient had disappeared.

BB-8 had pushed against her leg and whimpered; the sound bled over the screaming, and his touch had gently bumped her back into reality. He stared up at her, warbling softly.

Even if he wasn't sentient, Mila read fear in the tone of his binary.

"It…" She sighed hard, forcefully expelling the air from her lungs as if doing so would rid her of the images clawing at her eyes. "I'm okay, buddy."

_No, you're not. _

_You'd even lie to a droid? _

_Pathetic_.

"It was just in my head."

* * *

Shaky legs carried Poe down the _Hevurion Grace_'s gangplank. His head still reeled; he hardly heard General Organa's protocol droid's greeting as he sped behind him. He though he'd hear something about checking the computers. His sore back stiff from having been glued to the pilot's seat the entire ride back, he walked with a little bit of a hobble, but he hid it well.

Iolo's Headhunter was on his right, its entire port side blackened. Techs and astromechs ran to it and clamored all over it even before Iolo stumbled down the ladder. Karé was just as wobbly as he was.

The three pilots stopped at the bottom of the gangplank, staring at each other slack-jawed. No one really knew what to say.

Slowly Karé started to smile, then to laugh.

"What the hell was that?!"

She threw one arm around Poe, the other around Iolo. Both of them laughed and rocked backwards, trying to support her weight. Words tumbled out of all three of their mouths at lightspeed.

"How did we do that?!"

"That was one hell of a shot—"

"…and some _nice_ flying from—"

"I wish you guys could have seen his face!"

"I'd pay good money to see those pilots explain _this_ to Hux!"

"How did you _not _die doing—"

"…though I was done, then Karé came in and—"

"_I can't believe we pulled that off!_"

"Muran would have loved to see that."

Iolo's voice took on a different flavor as he said it.

Poe nodded, taking a moment to remember his old friend. To remember all of Rapier Squadron. All three pilots fell silent. The grief tugging at Poe's heart also pulled on theirs.

"I think he'd have been proud," Karé said.

"Yeah," Poe said. "I think they all would have been."

What would Kit have had to say about this?

"So," Poe went on, throwing an arm around each of his former squad mates, "I say we go get cleaned up, then meet back at my place for a toast. For them."

He let Karé and Iolo go, smiling as the two of them disappeared from the hangar. As crazy as it had been, he couldn't have been happier to have gotten to work with them again. They both headed up their own squadrons—Dagger and Stiletto—and he couldn't have been prouder of them.

That didn't mean he didn't miss them.

Someone walked up beside him, but he hardly noticed until she spoke:

"Flyboys. You're all the same."

General Organa shook her head, smiling.

"Some of us are fly_girls_," Poe shot back.

"Captain Kun is an exceptional pilot, as is Captain Arana, for that matter." Her eyes twinkled. "But it's a rare pilot who engages one frigate and two Star Destroyers and lives to tell the tale."

"Word travels fast."

Leia grinned. "That it does."

"Princess Leia?" C-3PO called down to them from the top of the gangplank. Poe tried to ignore the urgency with which he spoke. "You had better come and see this."

When Leia's face darkened, Poe's stomach dropped. "It's never good when he says that," she said, starting up the gangplank.

"Ma'am? Is there anything I can do?"

Leia turned and smiled at him, trying to reassure him as the worry that dampened the spark in her eye started to gnaw at him. "Go find your droid, Poe. And your wife. Celebrate this victory. Remember your friends. You've more than done enough today."

* * *

Walking—which had turned into nervous pacing—hadn't worked, so Mila went into the medbay proper, BB-8 rolling behind her. A few young nurses conversed in the corner—none over the age of twenty, and none of whom she recognized—but they were so engrossed in whatever it was they were talking about that they didn't notice her or BB-8 come in. She put her head down and made her way to the shelving in the back, picked up a container filled with bandages waiting to be rolled up, and got to work.

This work was usually reserved, at this level, for medical droids and those brand new to the job, but Mila didn't care. Perhaps doing something with her hands would get her some relief. The smell of blood and burning flesh still hadn't left her nose, but it would be a start.

One bandage. Two.

She rolled and re-rolled, making them perfect as she could, as if she were a student approaching a practical examination. She rearranged them within the shelving until her knees hurt from squatting. Stiffly, she stood up and began to sort through topical medications, which actually had become a little too disorganized. BB-8 didn't leave her side for a second.

Mila set the first bottle back in its usual spot and let her ears drift to the lively conversation going on behind her.

"…but I went down to the hangar the other day—you know, just because I could. Looks like they got some new blood, too. And you're _never_ going to believe who I saw down there."

"Who?"

The first girl's voice dropped to a whisper, Mila assumed for dramatic affect:

"_Poe. Dameron_."

The girls gasped and chattered amongst themselves. Mila had to laugh.

"You did not."

"_Yes I did!_"

For the first time that day, she felt a smile come across her face. He'd get a kick out of this once he came back.

_If he comes back_.

"I still don't believe you."

"Well you should! The rest of his old squadron was there with him. I don't remember their names. So was his BB-unit…."

BB-8's head rose to the top of his dome, like he were puffing his chest out with pride. Mila raised a finger to her lips. "Shhh."

"…but I'm dead serious!" I think he looked at me. I almost _died_."

One of the other girls gasped. "Get. Out."

The rustle of fabric indicated the first girl was nodding excitedly.

"Did you talk to him?"

"_No!_ Of course not! Then I _actually_ would have died!"

The other two girls laughed. Mila snickered to herself.

_Here they are, flyboy. Your adoring public. _

"…and I don't know! He's… he's just _him._ And… I mean, come _on_, have you _seen_ him? Those _eyes_—"

The speaker sounded as if she'd seen a rancor, yet somehow found it humorous. "Gail, shut up."

"And _seriously_, the—"

"Shut _up!_" This time, it hissed from behind gritted teeth.

"Why?"

"_Because he's right there!"_

Mila's head shot up with a gasp. She whirled around on her heel.

Sure enough, there he was, standing in the doorframe, grinning at her.

"_You're okay!_"

She bounded across the room, BB-8 squealing behind her.

"Hey do—_oof!" _

Poe stumbled backwards and down the hallway as he held her, laughing. Mila fought back tears the relief was so overwhelming.

_He's okay. He's okay!_

Poe set her back down, and she kissed him so hard she saw stars.

"Are you hurt?" The words tumbled out of her mouth. "Did you get what you went in for? How are—"

"They're fine." Smiling at her, Poe gently grabbed her shoulders, and that steadied her. "Iolo got a little cooked, but he's alright."

"You?"

"Couple of bruises, but it's nothing you couldn't fix in your sleep." Poe grinned triumphantly. "And yeah, we got it."

Mila sighed with relief and threw her arms back around him, trying to reassure herself that he was there.  
"I'm okay," he whispered, kissing the side of her head. "You can breathe easy now, doc. It's over."

She pulled herself closer to him, reveling in the familiar scent of his old flight jacket, thanking the Force that he was there. That he was _alive_.

Poe pulled back and took her hand, leading her from the medbay and into a turbolift. He waited for the door to shut before he spoke, his gentle tone a bit more concerned:

"How'd you hold up today?"

The palpitations, the pacing, the bloody body all came back in an instant. Mila sighed and shook her head, staring a hole in the floor.

"I'd rather not talk about it."

She hated that answer. She hated it more than she knew what to do with, but that was always the one that came out of her mouth.

That meant she was keeping something—a lot of somethings—from her husband, and she absolutely despised herself for it.

_You keep this up, and he's not gonna trust you anymore_.

That damn voice definitely knew where the armor was weakest.

"Sounds like you need a distraction, then."

He squeezed her hand as he spoke. Nothing in his eyes, or his voice—_nothing _about him changed when she looked back up at him. Still just as much as a warm, safe place to crash as he'd ever been.

Mila had no idea how he did it.

"Come with me," he said as the turbolift doors opened.

* * *

Corellian brandy wasn't Poe's top choice when it came to spirits. As a native Yavinian, he preferred something with a stronger bite, but he would take it over nothing, and it certainly wasn't at the back of the list. He really didn't drink too often. He preferred to remain sharp-minded, but he would indulge in a taste during a special occasion.

Today counted as such. And he could use the help coming down from the adrenaline or quieting the unwelcome thoughts that swarmed through his mind.

She had tried to hide it from him, but Poe had seen the way Leia's eyes had darted when she'd been called onto the _Grace_. He had heard nothing from her since—he assumed she was still knee-deep in sketchy credit transfers and suspicious hyperspace coordinates—but though he tried to tell himself that she simply wasn't done analyzing everything and that he just needed to be patient, he couldn't get himself to listen. But for now, he would shove them down and ignore them.

Now, he would celebrate.

He looked across to his wingmen, to his wife. Karé and Iolo had both been as eager to peel off those EVA suits as he had been, and they had both since traded the awful things in for fatigues and their old flight jackets. Mila gently smiled at him, the monster in her head seemingly subdued for now. She either had run it off for the moment or had it so well hidden that it was near impossible to notice. Poe wasn't quite good enough to tell the difference every time, but he hoped she'd catch a bit of a break. Judging from the soft twinkle in her hazel eyes, he decided to guess that she had.

He swirled the amber brandy around in his glass before raising it to them.

"To a tough mission accomplished," he said. "Or to our descent into piracy. You be the judge."

That earned him a chuckle from all three of them.

"And here's to Muran, who gave us so much. We miss you, buddy. Take care of them up there."

There was a lot more that he could have said, but he couldn't find the words to express any of it.

"To Muran." Karé raised her glass. "To all of Rapier Squadron."

* * *

They chatted and joked long into the night ship's time. General Organa had them all going different directions—Karé and Stiletto flew sector patrols; Iolo and Dagger, a few recon missions that he wasn't allowed to speak about. Poe had the entire starfighter corps to look after. None of them ever really got a chance to slow down, to catch up. That made their interactions few and far between, and moments like this, where all of them were in the same place for more than a few minutes, even more rare. Poe reveled in every second.

He wondered what the others would have thought of this movement, or what General Organa would have them doing. Maybe they would be split between Dagger and Stiletto. Maybe they would all command their own squadrons. Maybe there would have been more than three pilots carrying out Sabre Strike. Maybe there'd be more than three in this room.

Maybe the Resistance would be better equipped to handle… whatever it was that was coming.

Even as he watched Karé and Iolo chat with Mila about everything under the sun—he hadn't been the only one they'd missed—even when he cut in himself, his voice and their laughter couldn't drown out the worry that started to gnaw on him like a cancer.

Or the anger.

After Karé and Iolo had left for the night, he flopped on the end of his bed, slumped over with his head in his hands.

"You okay?" Mila sat down next to him, sliding her arm around his shoulders.

_I shouldn't have been staring down a Star Destroyer. Ro-Kiintor should have called the Republic, but he didn't. How deep in is this guy? And are there—_

He stopped the words from coming out of his mouth. She'd had a rough enough day as it was. She didn't need more to worry about.

"Back just hurts," Poe got out. It wasn't entirely a lie—it still smarted from where he'd hit it. He'd told her about the collision, but he hadn't really been able to do anything about it yet.

"I have something for it, should you want it."

He nodded, and she jumped up and dug in her medkit before sitting back down behind him. "Let me see," she said.

Stiffly he took off his shirt. Mila hissed between her teeth. "Yeah, flyboy. That doesn't look like it feels good. Here." He heard a bottle cap snap open, some kind of cream crinkle between her fingers. "This'll do a number on it. Hopefully touching it isn't too—"

"_Ow!_"

Mila jerked back. "Sorry! It's gotta—"

He turned over his shoulder and slowly smirked at her, her apology dying on her tongue as soon as she saw the quirk in his brow, the mischievous gleam in his eye. Her lips tightened into a scowl that clearly held back a laugh. She sighed through her nose.

"And I fell for it again, didn't I?"

"Yup."

Mila groaned. "I _hate_ it when you do that!" She punched him in the shoulder, which only made him laugh harder. He grunted.

"Okay, that _did—_"

"Oh, come on. There isn't a bruise there!"

"Well there's gonna be—"

"Then maybe you shouldn't push your luck!"

She laughed as she said it, so his little prank had the desired effect. Poe grinned. "Point taken." He raised his hands in surrender. "Truce?"

Mila smiled and shook her head. "What am I gonna do with you?"

"Is that a n—"

Mila cut him off with a hard, quick little kiss. "Truce."

She went back to her work, her intermittent giggles fading as she worked the bacta into his bruised skin. He gritted his teeth.  
"You know," she said, "I can always tell when it actually hurts."

"How's that?"

Mila snapped the bottle closed and wiped whatever excess was left on her hands onto the towel she had grabbed. She affectionately rubbed his shoulders.

"'Cause you don't make a sound."

Somehow he got the feeling that had more than one meaning as he slid his shirt back on. Mila now stood in front of him; she ran her hand along the side of his face to get him to look at her.

"What's really bothering you, Poe?"

Called it.

Poe sighed as all the nagging questions all of a sudden barged back in, as dread once again dropped his stomach. "I don't wanna burden you with it."

She raised her eyebrows at him. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to." She sat back down next to him and laid a little hand on his shoulder. "Just know I did sign up to carry half the burden."

_On top of everything else?_

Yes, on top of everything else, because that was his Mila, and she, he was finding, could carry a lot of weight. She wanted to help, so he would let her.

"I shouldn't have seen a Star Destroyer today."

Mila's eyes popped. "You _what_?"

He might not have mentioned that part just yet. Poe sighed.

"When Ro-Kiintor sent the distress signal, he didn't call the New Republic. He called a big _Resurgent_."

He paused, weighing the odds of what would happen if the next words came out of his mouth. He didn't want to scare her too badly, but at the same time…

"Karé and Iolo said it looked a hell of a lot like the one they saw while leaving Rattatak."

Mila stared at him, eyes wide.

"With it came a few support ships and a whole slew of TIEs. So—"

"So whatever Ro-Kiintor had, the First Order wanted to keep under lock and key." Mila spoke slowly, her wavelength catching up with his. "Whatever's on that ship, it's bad."

Poe sighed. "Really bad."

"And you….?"

"I'm terrified, Mila. And angry."

Mila took his hand. "You and me both, flyboy."

He lowered his head onto her shoulder. She pressed her lips to his forehead.

"What's that you always tell me?" she said, running her fingers through his hair. "Try not to worry about it until you know exactly what it is?"

"To which you always reply, 'That's harder than it looks?' Yeah, you'd be right."

Mila chuckled. "You could try sleeping on it. You might feel better in the morning. You look tired."

His body felt like it weighed twice as much from the exhaustion in his limbs, but his eyes and his brain remained startlingly, sickeningly awake. Restlessness had started to chill him already.

Still, he nodded. Mila smiled at him. "Then get some rest, flyboy." She kissed his forehead. "You earned it."

She stood and took a few steps back towards their tiny kitchen as he bent and yanked off his flight boots.

Maybe he could try, but he knew he wouldn't be sleeping tonight. Not what with he knew was coming in the morning.

"Or…."

Poe's brow furrowed as he looked up at his wife, who spun on her heel to face him. The twinkle in her eye as she looked him over, the new pout in her lips, the swing in her hips as she slowly came back towards him. He'd seen her do just this a thousand times, but it still left him gaping like a teenager.

"I could be _really _mean," she purred, now sitting on his lap, straddling his hips with her knees, running her hands up and down his arms, "and keep you up _all night long_."

Not only had she read that he wasn't in the least bit tired—or else she wouldn't have been suggesting what she was—but she'd now just offered to stay up with him, to get his mind off of things in a way that only she could. No doubt, after the day she'd had, she needed the distraction herself. A smile stretched across his face.

"_Please_ do."

Mila laughed as she kissed him. His heart thumped hard in his chest as he leaned into her and deepened it.

"Okay," he grunted as he pulled her closer and started to roll her over onto her back. "I'm awake now."

Mila laughed hard as he kissed her. The worry encasing him, for now, melted away.


	3. Shell-Shocked

**And onto Chapter 3! Thanks for the love guys! I'm so glad you're enjoying it so far! :)**

* * *

_Chapter 3: Shell-Shocked_

As effective as Mila's… distraction… had been, it was entirely too early in the morning ship's time, and Poe was wide awake. He'd gotten a few hours of restless sleep, but if anything, it had made him feel worse. He stared a hole through the transparisteel window, trying to crawl out of the rut he had dug himself into.

Nothing worked.

His eyes wandered across the room to his data pad. Poe hoped to see the tell-tale blinking green light in the corner that would tell him General Organa had found something of note to share with him—something that might finally stop the questions that swarmed him.

He had no such luck.

_How strong is their grip on the galaxy? Are there others like Ro-Kiintor? What in hell is on that—_

Poe sat up and raked his hands through his hair with a deep sigh. He looked over his shoulder at his sleeping wife, who had long since rolled over from being snuggled right up against him to curling into her usual ball. He watched her for a moment. She hardly moved; he almost couldn't hear her as she breathed. The back of his finger brushed the top of her bare shoulder; he smiled when she didn't stir under his touch. He laid back down and kept an eye on her. Even if he couldn't at the moment, at least she was sleeping peacefully. After the day she'd had, Poe was shocked that she had made it this far into the night without—

She sharply breathed in. Grimaced. Tossed. Cried out. Her chest rose and fell under the blankets. Her forehead glistened with sweat.

Poe sat up. "Oh man."

She'd come to in a second; she always did. And he would be there to guide her back once she woke.

Still—though he'd seen this play out more times now than he could count—it made him completely helpless.

It took everything in him not to reach for her, to shake her awake. He'd only made that mistake once; he bore the bruises for almost a week. Mila could hardly look at him, much less speak after it happened.

He wouldn't put either of them through that again.

"Mila," he called. "Mila, wake up."

* * *

Sirens screamed in Mila's ears as she pelted through the hallways surrounding _Echo_'s medbay, trying not to slip on blood.

The smell—normally it didn't bother her—ripped at her stomach, stuck to the inside of her nose. They lined the hallways, all screaming at her, begging for her help, but there were too many of them. Maybe if she could call for backup—

Shaking hands snatched up her comm; she fought to push sound through her vocal cords, but not matter how hard she tried, it wouldn't come. Mila tightened her hand around the device, but it vanished from between her fingers. She sprinted down another hallway looking for any of the other medics, still trying to call for them. Still unable to speak.

Ion cannonfire boomed outside. The normal overheads had long since gone out, their only remnants the sparks that rained down from above. Even the emergency lighting flickered.

_Anyone!_ she tried to call, but her mouth and her throat still wouldn't respond. _Help me!_

Mila rounded a corner, her boots screeching to a halt. In front of her was a lone medical capsule, long since abandoned. Its stark white sides were splattered with blood; it streamed over the side and onto the floor.

Whoever was in there didn't have much time left.

_You can't save them all, Lieutenant._

Krell's icy voice stuck in her ears. Mila slowly stepped forward.

_Perhaps if he died, it would remind you of_—

"_Mila!_"

She knew that voice by heart, and it howled in pain. Now the room was spinning.

Poe.

_Hold on flyboy, I'm coming! _

Dodging more sparks, she took off running down the hallway, but the harder she tried to move, the more her limbs were weighed down. The longer the hallway became.

By the time she got to him, she almost didn't recognize him he was beaten so badly. His brown eyes flicked towards her for a second, maybe in a last apology before they glazed over and stared into space. His breath faded from his lungs.

She hadn't been fast enough.

Finally sound pushed through her throat. A scream. It hurt her own ears, rattled her head. She white-knuckled the sheets his body was on, though they were so soaked through they stuck to her hands. The world rushed and spun around her, almost as if she had sat up out of shallow water. Cool air—fresh, without the metallic tang of blood—trickled up her nose.

A voice called through the chaos:

"Hey, doc. Mila. Breathe. You're okay. Something you see, something you can touch, something you hear. Go."

Flashes of a darkened room broke through the haze. Mila noticed her hands were no longer wet, but they still gripped—

"Sheets."

And her ears—

"Your voice."

The images shattered. Reality rushed back in. She turned towards the voice she'd heard—the same one from her nightmare, but not in screaming in pain. Steady. Warm. Even. To her relief, she saw—

"You."

Unhurt. Unharmed.

_Alive_.

Mila burst into violent sobs, as she always did upon emerging from her damaged subconscious. It's grimy hands still groped her heart, but she could see now that she had almost outrun it.

She had the upper hand.

For now.

_Anything that touches you is trying to kill you. Anything that touches you is trying to kill you. You're going to die. You… _

The voice in her mind faded out, and as soon as it did, she noticed her husband's upturned palm sitting on the blankets in front of her, there for her to take when she was ready, her signal to him that she was back enough that she could be touched. His eyes were on her, but she didn't squirm underneath them.

"It's okay, sweetheart. You're safe."

Mila stared at his hand through her tears, waiting for that terrible feeling to pass.

"Take a deep breath."

She complied.

"'Atta girl. You're here with me. You're safe."

Finally those dirty hands released her—the demon had decided it had its fill for the night. Her fingers hesitantly brushed his—_You'll hurt him again_, that familiar voice screamed in her head. _You'll_—

Mila laid her palm in his hand, and the second he encased it, the voice in her head dropped back to its usual whisper.

Now, she could truly come up for air.

She threw her arms around his neck and held herself as close to him as she could, sobbing so hard she could barely breathe.

Was he okay? He felt okay. He sounded okay.

_He's not okay_.

"Easy, doc. Breathe." He ran his fingers through her hair; he took a few deep breaths himself, and her own breathing started to slow to match it. "You're okay, sweetheart."

"A-Are you?"

She hated how her voice trembled.

Mila felt Poe's hands on her bare shoulders as he pushed her back so she could look at him. Part of her still expected to find his old Rattatak wounds jeering up at her.

"Not a scratch, doc. Completely in once piece. Whatever you put on my back really helped. I hardly feel it anymore."

He was right. Not a scratch. Not even a paper cut.

"I…I didn't wake you up, did I?"

_You did. And he's mad at you for it—_

"You didn't, Mil. Been awake for the past hour or so. Sabre Strike's got my head going at a thousand miles an hour. But even if you had, it wouldn't matter."

_Yes it would._

"I wish I wasn't such a kriffing burden—"

"You're _not_ a burden, Mila. Not even close."

His face was a bit warped by the tears swimming in her eyes as she looked back up at him. She'd quieted back down some, but she could feel another wave coming. She squeezed her eyes shut.

_Please don't do this_, she begged.

Poe pushed her messy hair from her face, wiped some of her tears from her cheeks.

"Look at me, sweetheart," he said gently.

The second she did, the second wave crashed, and what pieces she had managed to pick up shattered in her hands. She held onto his wrists so tightly she wondered if she'd cut of circulation.

"Whatever you saw, it wasn't real. Maybe parts of it were once, but it's not _now_, and it's not _here_. You hear me?"

She did.

Better yet, she believed him.

"I'm okay," he whispered as he rocked her. "You're okay. We're both safe. Shh…."

Mila leaned into his arms, burying her face into his bare shoulder. The warmth of his skin next to hers started to slow her hammering heart. The image of his broken body flashed in her mind's eye.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

_He's fine. Obviously he's fine. Now you'll annoy the hell out of him asking over and over, like you always do—_

"Yes, sweetheart," he whispered. "Right as rain." Mila felt him nuzzle into her hair before he kissed her temple.

She wasn't sure how long he held her like that, but it was long enough for her knees to cramp up and her feet to fall asleep.

"You wanna try to lay down?"

Mila nodded against him. Poe let her go long enough to sink back down into the mattress and pat the bed next to him. Letting out a deep breath, Mila laid her head on his chest. His arm rested across her shoulders; his heartbeat steadily drummed in her ear.

The longer she had been on the _Echo_, the more frequent her nightmares had become, and the longer it had taken her to calm down from them. Some nights, relief never came. Some nights, she never even got close to falling back asleep. She reached for Poe's hand. Though she still trembled against him, still softly cried, the cool of relief had started to seep through her veins.

It was almost over.

Poe wove his fingers into her long hair, not saying a word, just breathing.

"Look out the window," Poe whispered. "Tell me what you see."

Stinging eyes opened and took in the vast sky that surrounded them. "Stars," she sniffled. "Empty space."

Mila knew where he was taking this, but it didn't make it any less comforting.

"Mmmhm." He kissed the top of her head. "It's quiet out there, doc. We're completely by ourselves. We're safe."

Mila's limbs slowly weighed down, the idea of much needed rest becoming more and more irresistible.

_But if you go back to sleep, it'll all come back—_

"You're safe."

Poe's arm tightened around her shoulders.

"You're in the safest place you could be…."

* * *

Poe watched her fall back asleep in his arms, but he was nowhere close to following her example. As badly as he wished his exhausted body would, the same nervous questions churned in his mind, with a host of all-too-familiar worries joining them.

_Will she ever get any peace?_

He hoped she had it now, even if would only be for a few hours.

He did eventually drift off himself, but it was so fitful that it did next to nothing.

His alarm finally alerted him that it was now acceptable to down all of the caf her could find. Feeling a little sick, he gently sild out from under Mila, who slept soundly as far as he could tell. She desperately needed the rest. He'd more than kick himself if he disturbed it. To his relief, she wrapped her arms around her pillow and sank into the mattress with a contented sigh as he sat up and pulled on his sweatpants.

A blinking green light flashed in his peripheral.

General Organa had gotten back to him.

Suddenly much more awake, Poe went to his data pad and picked it up.

_Come find me immediately—_

So it was as bad as he thought.

Heart racing, Poe pulled on his fatigues as quickly as he could manage; he'd shower once he got back. Whatever those answers were, they couldn't wait. He scrambled to wake BB-8 up; he wasn't sure he wanted to do this alone, and he was certain that whatever Leia told him to do, the droid would be in on.

BB-8 chirped an enthusiastic as his photoreceptors flickered to life.

"Shhh." Poe raised a finger to his lips. "Buddy, she's still asleep."

BB-8 quieted and obediently rolled out of his charging station. Poe had to grin at how apologetic the little guy looked. He stole one last glance at his wife, who had rolled onto her side, still sound asleep. As softly as he could he made his way to her side, gingerly brushed her hair from her face, and kissed the top of her shoulder.

"Hang in there, sweetheart," he whispered.

The bright of the hallway lights pierced his eyes as Poe opened the door and locked it behind him. He fought with everything in him not to burst into a run. BB-8 rolled right by his ankle.

"Yeah, BB," Poe responded to the droid's worried warble. "We're going to find out what in the hell this is about."


	4. D'Qar

**Y'all. It has been a HOT. MINUTE. I meant to finish this in time for SWCC, but I got sick and then life got away from me. But... *delayed reaction* HOW ABOUT THAT IX TRAILER?! WHAT. IS. HAPPENING. _PALPATINE!? LIERGUUSDIBLSUAGFLASUFDBJ _And CLONE WARS?! FALLEN ORDER?! GALAXY'S FREAKING EDGE?! IT'S TOO MUCH TO HANDLE!**

**Oh, and I graduated. So there's that. **

**Thanks for being so patient and wonderful, as always! I hope all of you have been well and that you enjoy the update! **

* * *

_Chapter 4: D'Qar_

Mila swam out of the mire of sleep, gripping at her pounding head. The other side of the bed was empty. She shivered and pulled the coverlet closer around her as she fumbled for the shirt—one of Poe's—that had been so hastily discarded the night before, when the night was still young and the nightmares were lightyears away. The softness comforted her weary body as she pulled it over her shoulders and stood. She stared out the window.

What she wouldn't give for her bare feet to touch grass, for her lungs to breathe in non-recycled air, to see something other than the expanse of space….

Her time on the _Echo of Hope_ had been hell. Maybe, once she was planetside, she'd start to hea—

No.

It was too much to ask.

A tired frown warping her face, Mila pulled her fatigues on, her puffy eyes catching on the band wrapped around her left arm in the mirror. Her fingers traced the medic's symbol; it glared against the pristine white like blood seeping through a clean bandage. Once Mila had been proud to wear it.

Her fingers picked and tugged at it, begging her to let them roll it off.

She scanned her own face. Sunken and swollen, hazel eyes lightless; lips a bit chapped, hair thinner than it was. Worry lines scarred her face. She dropped her gaze to the floor.

Could she keep doing this?

The door opened behind her, but Mila couldn't turn to face it.

"Morning, sweetheart."

Poe'd learned early on that sneaking up on her was a terrible idea, so he always announced himself, even if Mila could see him coming. The corners of her mouth rose a bit. Her thoughts trapped her in a cell with no windows, no doors. Some days, Poe could pick the locks. Even now he whittled away at them.

"Learn anything?" she asked.

Poe nodded. To Mila's chagrin, the worry in his eyes hadn't lessened as he wandered across the room. His back was to her while he searched the top of the white cabin table in front of him.

"It's bad, Mila."

_Bad? How bad? _Mila swallowed. "Is that all you can tell me?"

"For now, yeah." Poe's tired voice hadn't released any of its tension—his head clearly still spun with whatever he'd been told—but his eyes twinkled as he held her data pad out to her. Its notification light blinked bright green.

"Definitely check that," he said.

"Now?"

"Now."

Mila's brow furrowed as she took the datapad from him and powered it up. The familiar weight of Poe's arm settled around her shoulders as she opened the new message and started to read:

_Captain Mila Dameron: Transfer Notice._

Mila's breath caught in her throat.

Was… was this…?

_Report to Resistance Headquarters on D'Qar at 16:00—_

Heat rushed through Mila's body. Her face flushed. Her tongue stumbled to form the words that the rest of her had trouble believing:

"I'm… I'm going to—"

"_We're_, Mila." Poe's arm tightened around her shoulders. "I got the same orders. You know what that means?"

Relief sent tears streaming down Mila's face. A few renegades splotched her datapad screen as she read on. Three more days—only three!—of stale, recycled air, of bright cruiser lights and walls that caved in around her like the sides of a trash compactor, maybe even of bodies and blood that screamed and splattered one second and were gone the next—

"It's over."

Mila smiled. Laughed. Cried.

"It's finally over."

* * *

Mila had almost all of her things packed before midday ship's time the day she received her new orders. She didn't even treat with saying goodbye to the _Echo of Hope_ as she, for the last time, wound through its blinding hallways. Her heart hammered in her chest. Since Rattatak, it was rare that it didn't. The voice in her head almost always urged her to run from nothing; even now, her shoulders balled like the point of a knife had been pressed between them. But the sensation ebbed slightly with the chilly recycled air that pushed against her skin as the hangar blast doors hissed open. She stepped inside.

There was her transport—a custom Resistance craft several bored techs had sewn together from an Alliance-era B-wing and a Clone Wars-era _Montura-_class shuttle. The same ship that had brought her onto the _Echo_ and into the Resistance four months earlier.

Beyond it, through the wobbling ray shields that separated the hangar from space, glowed D'Qar.

Heat sprouted from Mila's tired arm as she hoisted her duffel higher onto her shoulder and pressed on. The transport's fighter escort—three T-70 X-wings that Mila could recognize the instant they broke atmosphere—had already began their takeoff sequence. The warm stench of fuel blasted up her nose; where the quad engines glowed, the air rippled with the heat they let off. When she finally ducked into the transport and set her duffel down, her ears rang from their familiar shriek.

Others came on board, but Mila hardly noticed them. She kept her eyes fixed on the system in front of her, watching the asteroids that surrounded it roll by, little more than pebbles at this distance. They would come in handy, should they ever be found and attacked. From what Poe had told her, TIE fighters were nimble and hard to hit, but one well-placed shot usually did the trick. An asteroid the size of the fighter would probably do it, too. Anything at all to slow the First Order down. Even with their numbers growing every day, they didn't have the manpower to stop them now. If they were found, they'd—

_Stop_.

_We're not going to be found. _

Mila hadn't heard the transport's doors shut, but the smell of fuel cycled out of the sitting area, replaced by cold, manufactured oxygen. The floor vibrated as the engines came online. Next thing she knew, they were floating, flanked by two silver X-wings—Karé and Iolo's—and led out by Poe. Had it not been for the bright magenta orbs glowing on the back of his fighter, its black sides would have blended in with the debris ahead, a little more than a shadow. Mila kept her eyes on it.

D'Qar grew in front of them, so much so that it took up the entirety of Mila's window. Asteroids and less-natural satellites paraded around the planet's atmosphere, trapped in its gravitational pull, forming a ring that encircled it like a crown. A patchwork of deep greens spoke of forests, the shimmering threads between them of winding rivers.

It should be beautiful. Mila hoped it was.

They wove between rocks and hunks of space debris, the first grey lights of a cloudy day pouring in through the windows when they broke atmosphere. Mila squinted as her eyes adjusted. She knew now why Leia had chosen it. In addition to being well out of the way of any major trade routes, D'Qar appeared uninhabited. There were no immediate signs of intelligent life, at least none that was terribly advanced. The tangle of tree limbs and brambles and moss rolled on and on in an endless sea of green.

Somewhere under all of it was their base.

The trees shortened, the thickets thinned to a clearing. Permacrete crawled out from beneath the shroud of a large mound—some kind of building that had since crumbled into ruin, that the forest had mostly claimed. Control towers poked out just above the trees. Whatever buildings were somewhat visible were painted green and brown, their roofs dripping with moss and wound with ivy. Two X-wings sat parked on the permacrete, and a third's nose stuck out from the shadow of the mound erected overtop it. A little more than ants, techs and pilots scurried in and out of the hangar—that was what it was, Mila realized—sparing a few passing glances upwards to pair an object with the rumbling overhead.

The comms towers hailed them, and they began their descent. Mila wondered if this was how the Rebels of Yavin IV had felt all those years ago. Had their heads spun at the sight of their mission becoming so real?

Mila was on her feet before the gangplank dropped, but as soon as it did, everyone surged past her. She couldn't move.

This was no Hosnian Prime.

Morning mist glittered in the trees above her. The sun glowed palely through the light cloud cover overhead. Humidity stuck at her face. In the distance, the clouds darkened; long tails of grey sprouted from their undersides and stretched downward to the receiving ground—rain, which would be here within the next hour. Its sweet smell drifted on the wind. Birds sang in the forest beyond. All of a sudden, after the long, dark months of noticing none of it, Mila's world had color.

Even the people seemed different. Those who had time to notice the new arrivals as they spilled out across the permacrete smiled and greeted the complete strangers like they had known them all their lives. Everyone went everywhere with light in their steps and in their eyes—with a purpose. She couldn't explain why, but tears sprang to her eyes.

"Hey doc?" The voice—Poe's voice—broke through her trance. He stood at the bottom of the gangplank, his helmet perched on one hip and his opposite hand held out to her. Karé and Iolo waited behind; BB-8 stared up at her from behind Poe's leg. "You coming?"

Mila nodded, but she didn't move.

"It's so quiet."

She noticed something else about these people, and it gripped her hard. It wafted from the hangar and out across the permacrete; it floated on the air like the mist that sat in the trees. Mila, for the first time in she didn't know how long, found it slipping into her heart.

Hope.

Her throat warmed and closed. Though her eyes were still wet—her vision had only blurred further the longer she stood on the gangplank, her senses springing back to life—she started to smile.

"I could heal here."

It was almost as if she hadn't heard herself, like her tongue had rattled off the words before her brain could stop it. But she believed them.

For the first time since that long night on Rattatak, she believed them.

Poe smiled at her as she took his hand, her feet no longer creaking across durasteel, but grinding on permacrete—touching solid ground for the first time since she'd joined the Resistance. Karé and Iolo soon flanked them. Sparks flashed from the shadow of the hangar as they approached, bouncing from the open circuitry of the half of the X-wing Mila couldn't see from the air.

The tech—a deep-skinned girl with lively black curls—stopped whatever she was doing and raised her protective goggles from her eyes, squinting at them. She rapped the arm of the pilot she'd been helping, thrust a finger in their direction, and the man fell silent. Little by little, the activity in the hangar died down, like a wave had passed over the techs and the pilots and the droids alike. Mila's eyes darted between them. They welled up inside her, the feelings that she thought only moments before she could escape. Her heart thrashed in her chest.

The idea of talking to anyone she didn't know—no doubt they'd want to talk about _that_ night—made her want to wrench away from the group and sprint to the tree line. Her conscience felt like it had risen from her body, like she was watching the whole thing from the roof.

With a hard sign, Mila yanked herself down before she could lose all control. Focus. Focus on something. Anything. Like… how her fingers stretched around Poe's, the warmth, the softness of his palm against hers. The rhythm of their footsteps. Karé and Iolo's shadows chasing theirs across the pavement.

A thousand gazes crashed down on Mila. She forced her eyes to Poe's face.

"They better be looking at you," she said.

Whispers bounced off the rock walls:

"Is that—is that _Poe Dameron?_"

Maybe they were.

"When did they get here?"

They were.

"—Rapier Squadron! And…"

No one had noticed—

"—and Lieutenant Criss!"

So much for not noticing—

"—hear about Rattatak? She's a hero. They all are!"

Bile slithered up Mila's throat. The world floated again.

Hero.

She hated that word.

Maybe they meant well—they definitely meant well—but when people tacked that word onto her name, Mila squirmed. Every time. Those who she hadn't saved—the kids who fell to the flametroopers before she and her platoon could get to them, and Kit and Jaren. Even those next to her—her husband and his wing mates. Those who had lost almost everything and fought on anyway.

The Resistance wanted heroes? _There_ were their heroes. Not here.

Not her.

She let her eyes wander ahead, past the crowd budding around them. At the edge of the hangar, one man leaned against his X-wing's ladder, talking with a soldier. His wiry hand wrung the metal as he spoke—a nervous habit? The soldier—a pretty girl with white-blonde hair and bright blue eyes—laughed at something he said. Mila caught a glimpse of the side of the pilot's face—fair, freckled, and splotched with pink.

With her father's nose, and her mother's eyes.

That…that was—

Mila dropped Poe's hand. "Wait here a sec."

The people and their whispers didn't matter anymore. Her heart started to slow. With every step she took towards the boy, she inched back into herself. A clammy hand brushed durasteel as she ducked under one of his X-wing's s-foils.

The last time she'd stood behind him, she'd lost him in a crowd, and he'd charged towards his destiny, A part of her had feared she'd never get to tell him how proud she was of him. That she'd never see him again.

But here he was.

He waved to the girl he'd been talking to—something was familiar about her, too—and watched her disappear into the shadows. She'd never seen him smile like that.

"Looks like we've got some catching up to do, huh?"

The moment Calo Criss turned around, he burst into tears. Mila's heart exploded.

"C'mere, buddy."

Calo's hug squeezed the air out of Mila's lungs. She laughed as she held him—laughed and cried.

"You made it! You're really here!"

Mila rubbed her baby brother's back. "In the flesh."

"I was worried _sick_ about you!"

Did he know?

He had to have suspected something, but now wasn't the time to dwell on that. Mila pulled him closer.

"Right back atcha, buddy."

Calo's shaking hands landed on Mila's shoulders. "How… how've you been? How's home and everybody? Did you come by yourself? Did you bring anybody with—_Poe!_"

Poe's laughter rang in Mila's ears before she turned around to see him catching Calo in a bone-crushing hug. Karé and Iolo were just as enthusiastic. Mila smiled wide enough that her cheeks cramped as she came up alongside them.

"So…" Still a bit flustered, Calo glanced between the four of them. "Anything new?"

"I don't know, Mil." Poe folded his arms across his chest and cocked an eyebrow at Mila. The smile on his face brightened. "_Is_ there?"

Mila lifted her left hand next to her face, wagging her fourth finger at her brother. Even under the dim hangar lights, her rings sparkled.

She laughed as Calo's head whipped back and forth between herself and her husband, and it only grew louder when he threw his arms around both of them at once.

"You've always been family, Commander." Calo's voice caught on the words. "Thank the Force it's finally official."

"You know, I am your brother now, so you can call me Poe." Poe chuckled. "And while we're at it, this one—" he rubbed Mila's back "—got promoted, and so did those two." He motioned to Karé and Iolo. "Proud of all of them."

Someone from behind: "Not as proud as I am."

Mila recognized the voice instantly. Though she had already met General Organa once, her heart still flipped in her chest when she came up to the group.

"Welcome to D'Qar, Commander Dameron." She smiled at Mila. "_Captain_ Dameron."

Calo gasped, which sent them all laughing again. Leia's face warmed.

"Congratulations to you both."

They thanked her simultaneously, but they both knew her presence meant more than just pleasantries. She had more for them.

"Calo—that is your name, isn't it?"

Calo clearly hadn't adjusted to having such a hero call him by his name, so he gaped at her for a moment before nodding a bit too enthusiastically. "Yes, ma'am."

"I'm taking your sister to the med center. You can show the rest of them around, can't you?"

Calo nodded. "Yes, ma'am. We'll go find the others." He turned to Poe as they filed out. "L'ulo's running a sector patrol, but I know Jess and Snap will be happy to see you."

"And you'll be happy to see Snap," Poe smirked, elbowing Karé between the ribs. "Won't you, Karé?"

Karé rolled her eyes and groaned.

Mila watched as they wandered closer to the permacrete, the sound of their conversation fading until—

"Oh! You're blushing!"

"I'm gonna kriffing kill you!"

"Hey, you _tortured_ me when I first met Mila. You've had this coming!"

Mila's laughter blended with Leia's as she shook her head.

"You've certainly got your hands full with them, Captain." A matronly grin eased across Leia's face. "And I know you wouldn't have it any other way."

Mila smiled.

"Come with me, Captain. Your commanding officer is anxious to see you."

* * *

They wound through a labyrinth of winding hallways, hewn out of the same sandy rock that supported the hangar. The outside light diminished the farther in they went, tented emerald from the lights of the command center. Officers and lower-ranking soldiers alike greeted the general as she passed, and Mila heard her own name whispered by most of the people she passed. She tried to tune it out.

Mila squinted as she stepped into the Resistance's small medcenter. It was nowhere near as bright as the hospital back on Hosnian Prime, and nowhere close to those of the cruisers she'd worked on, but she had enough to see comfortably. Screens with vital signs and doctors' assignments glowed along the walls; the patients' rooms, which were almost completely vacant, vanished down a side hallway.

In the center of the room was a cluster of examination tables, a few medical droids, and a woman Mila hadn't seen in years. Had she changed as much as Mila had?

_And what will she think if she finds out about—_

"Harter?" Leia caught the woman's attention and smiled. "Your new arrival is here. I think you remember Captain Dameron."

Major Harter Kalonia's brow furrowed before she spotted Mila. A polite smile slid across her face—one that said that she hadn't recognized Mila yet.

"Captain, welcome to D'Qar," she started, extending her hand. "It's a pleasure to finally—" Her dark eyes popped. "Wait. Mila? Is that you?"

Mila chuckled. "Hey, Harter."

"By the Force!" Kalonia wrapped Mila into a hug. "How have you been, Lieu—excuse me—_Captain_ Criss… except the general called you by a different name, didn't she?"

_She's going to freak_.

"It's Dameron, now. I… got married, Major. I took his name."

"Oh, Mila!"

"And he's here, too. You'll see a lot of him."

"Can't get enough of you, can he?"

"He's also just good at finding trouble."

"Aren't they all?"

Both women laughed. There was such an ease to everything, to the people here, to this place. Without the uptightness of the Navy strangling the air, Mila didn't quite know what to do with herself.

"Come with me, Mila." Kalonia put an arm around Mila's shoulders. "I'll show you your assignments."

* * *

"You wanted to see me, General?"

He'd received the summons while Calo was showing him the T-70 he'd been flying, and he left the tip-giving to Karé and Iolo as he found his way into the base, through the hallways—BB-8 struggled to roll down the stairs—and finally, after a few wrong turns, into the command center. Leia smiled when she saw him.

"I did, Poe. Come here."

She motioned for him to stand next to her as she powered up the holoprojector in front of them. The ghostly image she had prepared rippled to life. An old man with withering features and white hair. His kind eyes had seen too much.

Poe recognized him instantly.

"How much do you remember about Lor San Tekka?"


	5. Things Hidden

**Y'all. It is December 20. You know what that means:**

**SPOILER BAN!**

**I hope everyone has fun watching RoS, but love it or hate it, no spoilers, and everybody get along! Mila and I will whoop you if you don't haha! But for now, enjoy this INSANELY overdue update! Life's been great over the past few months but it's been BUSY. I've missed you guys!**

**Now shut up and read the update! And enjoy Episode IX! I'm scared because a lot rides on this one, but I'm choosing to remain hopeful! I'll let you all know what I think with the next update!**

* * *

_Chapter 5: Things Hidden_

Agent Lana Solomon was tired.

Tired of guessing, tired of fighting. Tired of the New Republic.

Tired of grief.

He was everywhere. In the shine of an officer's plaque, in the drumming of boots on the ground. In his sons' smiles—in their laughter. She lost count of how many times she had turned to ask his advice, to look for him in a 250th muster call. Jaren Criss echoed in her soul.

Her husband, dead.

Six months had passed, yet Lana still couldn't wrap her head around it.

She put on a brave face for Liam and Evan, who shouldn't even know the meaning of the word _death_, who looked for their dad everywhere and saw him in everything, just as she did. She held them when they cried, comforted them when they suddenly missed him.

When she was alone, she crumbled.

Why did this have to happen? Why did he have to die?

What had happened to him in the first place?

Lana's fingers scraped the corner of the holo-frame on her desk, ghosting past Jaren's smiling face. Wishing for the warmth of his skin beneath them. Longing for answers. Command had promised her the full story, yet every time she asked, she was denied. She should have had the mystery holovid the second Jaren had sent it to her. She was family.

She was also a Senate Intelligence agent, trusted with the greatest secrets the New Republic had to keep. She should have known, and she _didn't_.

That, perhaps, was the most agonizing thing of all.

Lana's body rose from its seat and meandered through her office door. Stale white hallways glided past her peripheral, and it was late enough at night that the din of outside Republic City traffic had all but disappeared. Once she arrived at her destination, she laid her hand against a scanner before the doors unlocked and hissed open.

Towers of phosphorescent data greeted Lana as she stepped inside the Senate Intelligence Archives. She wound down endless rows of information—her route now as familiar to her as the hallways in her apartment—found the stack she was looking for, and flagged down a droid to retrieve the data card she wanted. She watched it slowly ascend, pinch the card between its claws, and float back down.

As soon as she had it, Lana shoved the card into her datapad. A few mechanical taps of her fingers later, and she brought up the same folder she'd brought up every day since she'd been widowed.

_250__th__ Pathfinders – Records of Engagement._

She opened the folder and scanned through it until she found the correct year. The footage from Dantooine, she had memorized. She had led the team that analyzed it.

Lana's finger hovered over the word _Rattatak_, her mind already generating the obnoxious red _access denied_ alert that had jeered at her every other time she'd come. Why did she keep trying, when she knew what the outcome would be? Was it stupidity that kept bringing her back? Desperation? The plastic heat of the screen stuck to her fingertip—

—and the file opened.

It _opened_.

Lana's heart pounded her breastbone. Her hands shook. After too long without knowing, had the Senate finally given her clearance? Was she _finally_ on the verge of—

She stared at her datapad. Blinked. Scrolled up and down so furiously the tapping of her finger against the screen echoed across the room, but there was only white.

No footage. No audio recordings. No reports.

Heart still hammering, Lana drove a diagnostic chip into the side of the data card. Code sprang to life across her screen, numbers and symbols that she deciphered as easily as Basic. Dates and times the files were added, the size and type of data, who had successfully accessed them—

Except the last name wasn't a name. It was a code—one that Lana had never seen before.

Immediately followed by the date and time the files had disappeared. Teeth clenched, Lana kept scanning the code, looking for anything unusual—

Lana almost hadn't seen it. A piece of the code was missing.

Which meant the Rattatak files hadn't been wiped, or removed, or archived elsewhere.

They had been stolen.

* * *

"I don't understand, Agent Solomon."

"Neither do I." Lana's composure trembled more than she'd have liked it to. The wind bit at her skin as she watched traffic dart past her apartment balcony. She strangled her comm between her fingers.

Her contact wasn't angry, but she wasn't thrilled either.

"Perhaps—"

"It was a shot in the dark, Agent. Don't worry too much about it." A pause, filled with the roil of background noise and the crackle of a shoddy connection. "We can manage without it."

"With respect, ma'am," Lana said, "you didn't manage last time. Or the time after that. I… I will keep looking. Your operation will fail without—"

"Agent—"

"There must be hard evidence supporting your accusations exactly, or else the Senate—" Lana cut herself off, squeezed her eyes shut. "Forgive me. It's hardly my place to lecture you."

Silence. Lana feared the interaction had ended, but her contact's voice crackled through her comm. "No." How could she still sound so patient, when the lost data must have been crushing her twice as hard as it did Lana?

"You're right, Lana. Words aren't enough. Not usually."

A distant call to attention made it through Lana's comm, by a voice she'd known since her academy days. One she hadn't heard in months, and hadn't planned on hearing again.

"It's a gamble, Agent, but we're running out of time," the contact continued, "If you can't track down those files in time, then her words will be better than nothing."

* * *

Her data had said most of her new recruits had never seen a battle, and Mila found herself wishing they never would. They stood immaculately at attention in front of her, faces shining. Eager. Fearless. Scarless. Mila had been like that once—dying not to pull her punches, practically begging for a war to start.

If only they knew what they'd gotten themselves into.

"Gentlemen." How many times had she made this same speech, or at least a version of it? "Ladies. I'm Captain Dameron. You've all been assigned to me. You are here because you know the truth. You're here to fight the good fight, to fight the First Order."

_The Order will break them. It broke you._

Her stomach churned. She swallowed hard.

"I'm here to get you as ready for it."

_They'll never be ready. You weren't. You still aren't._

Mila let her eyes wander across the recruits. Boys and girls as young as eighteen. Men and women who looked like they'd fought with the Rebellion—or at least like they were old enough to have. Very few with any military experience, let alone combat experience. A familiar freckled face, fair skinned and fair-haired. The last time Mila had seen her was at Muran's funeral.

_Aly Lin-Sarlin?_ She was just a child! Was she _crazy?_

Only one face in the ranks didn't shine, and Mila finally saw it. The bags beneath her eyes were stark against her milk-white skin; her eyes themselves were a bright, striking grey. Had there been a light in them once, it was extinguished now. She might as well have been a walking corpse.

After she took them through physical training—which, judging from their flushed faces and heaving chests, they'd barely survived today—she somehow have to get them to fire a blaster without blowing their faces off, show them to pathfind. For the few white bands she saw in the ranks—Aly included—she and Darren would put them through medical training.

And if she didn't succeed—maybe even if she did—the First Order would eat them alive.

"Over the next few weeks," she went on, but it was like hearing her voice come out of another person, "you'll be tested like you never have been before. You have limits? You'll blow them down—" _assuming they don't take you down first. _

_Yours sure did. _

_Pathetic._

_Any one of them dies once things heat up, and it's your fault._

_You think you can get _them_ to win a war? Maybe if they had anyone but you, they could. If they knew how broken you were—_

"—am I clear?"

A thunderclap: "Yes, Captain!"

Some of their enthusiasm slipped through the bars of Mila's cage. Maybe they would be alright after all. Maybe she _could _do this.

_Doubtful_.

"We'll start with combat training." Mila fought to ignore that nasty voice in her head, unsure if the conflict inside of her was as hidden as she thought it was. "First, the basics. Then we'll start throwing in weapons and—"

"I can fight."

The voice floated from the back of the ranks. Cold. Detached. Defiant. Mila searched for the owner—the corpse woman, whose exhausted eyes so reminded Mila of her own. And she had no patience for it.

"Back in line, soldier," was the automatic response, and it came out harsher than Mila had intended it.

Any remorse she felt evaporated when the soldier stood her ground.

"I can fight," the soldier repeated, more definitively.

Mila beat her rising temper down—something new she had to fight, and one of the battles she hated most. "Then why are you here—" she stole a glance at the soldier's lapel "—Lieutenant?"

"Got shot, Captain. Ordered to reconditioning."

_You're clearly thrilled about that._

…but anyone else would have felt the same. It excused nothing, but still. Mila sighed, suddenly feeling a little sick. "Got a name?"

"Val Luther."

Mila waved at the permacrete between them. "Step forward."

Her eyes narrowed, Luther complied. Was it from disdain or distrust that she looked down her nose at Mila as she towered over her, or was it both? She wouldn't give herself time to mull over the question. They had a war to fight.

Mila raised her arms to guard her face. "Show me what you got."

The two soldiers circled one another, careful steps crunching against the ground. Mila analyzed Luther's body language for hints at her first move. Tried to plot her own. Breathed in, out.

The twitch in Luther's built shoulders warned Mila to duck before the first punch came. She grabbed Luther's arm and twisted, using her little body as a lever to slam Luther to the ground. Mila's knees trapped her down.

"Yield, Lieutenant."

Luther's scowl hardened and she bucked her hips, sending Mila sprawling on the permacrete. Air burst from Mila's lungs. Her back and chest throbbed as she fought to breathe. She coughed. Staggering, she tried to stand—

—only to have Luther clamp her hands around her neck.

D'Qar vanished. Smoke stung her eyes, her throat. People screamed as they burned. The agent smirked down at her, his pale eyes shining with glee.

Flailing, Mila rammed her knee into the agent's stomach, rage burning through her veins like poison. She snarled, snatched his collar in one fist while the other slammed into his face—first to his nose, so the tears that flooded his vision would keep the blow to the side of his head concealed until it landed. Another. And another.

She hadn't killed him the first time they'd met like she should have. She would now.

"Captain Dameron!"

She raised her fist for the last blow, her knuckled sticky with his blood.

Good.

"_Mila!_"

Green. Fresh air. Overcast sky. And—

"No…"

Luther stared up at her, blood pouring from her nose, red bruises swelling on her cheekbones, her temple, her eyes.

"Oh no, no, _no…._"

Her hands shook. "Darren… Darren, take—take the rest of them to—"

Darren quickly waved the rest of the recruits from the scene, jogging alongside them as they started to run the perimeter of the base again.

Mila caught Aly's eye from the crowd as it disappeared. She'd blanched, stared at her like she was a wild animal.

Maybe she was one.

What had she _done?_


End file.
